


Something in Return

by Scrawlers



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 00:02:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17032428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrawlers/pseuds/Scrawlers
Summary: During Misty's visit to Alola, Ash decides to give her a present.





	Something in Return

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this about a year ago, after the first Misty cameo episodes in SM, but in light of Tumblr being . . . Tumblr, I've decided to archive everything here.

Ash wasn’t sure whether he felt relief or panic when he saw that Misty was waiting for him on Hano Beach as she had agreed to, but he knew that some combination of both was making his stomach flop around and his palms sweat around the black velvet box he held in his hands.

Although Hano Beach Resort was bursting with activity during the day, in the evening, it was a lot quieter. It had something to do with it being around dinnertime, Ash thought; there were plenty of outdoor tables on the hotel patio, but even though people sat out there to eat, drink, and relax, few wandered down to the beach as the sun set. That was why he had asked Misty to meet him there; he knew that it would give them a little bit of privacy, and though he didn’t know  _why_ he wanted privacy (it wasn’t like they were doing anything bad, or—or weird, it was no big deal!), he knew that he did, anyway. He didn’t want Brock watching over them, or his classmates crowding around, or Professor Kukui making commentary, or Roto snapping pictures. It was—he wanted it to be just him, and Misty, and Pikachu. That was what he wanted, so when everything was ready, he asked Misty to meet him down on the beach so they could talk.

And that was exactly what she did. He could see her down there now, standing at the shoreline, the water lapping at her feet. The sun had just about set entirely, and it made her hair look like it was fire. It was weird, Ash thought, how her hair could look like that. She was a water-type specialist, so wouldn’t it have made more sense for her hair to be blue, like Lana’s? Not that she could control what color hair she was born with, he guessed, though she could’ve always dyed it, like her sisters Violet and Daisy did. Then she couldn’t be so contradictory, so complicated—though he guessed he always liked that about her, how she was the  _tomboyish_ mermaid one second, yet then was gushing over some cutesy, romance-whatever in the next—

“ _Pikapi_ ,” Pikachu hissed from his place on Ash’s shoulder. He tapped Ash’s cheek with his paw.

It was enough to make Ash blink, pulling him out of his  _thoughts_ about Misty to realize that he was still watching her from  _afar_ instead. His cheeks were hot, and his heart felt like—how would Professor Kukui describe it? Oh, like Belly Drum. His heart felt like it was performing Belly Drum, which was weird since it wasn’t even  _in_ his belly, but—

“Pikapi!”

“Okay, okay!” Ash said, and he huffed a sigh. “I’m going, jeez. No need to be so pushy.”

“Piika,” Pikachu said, and Ash didn’t even need to look askance to know that Pikachu was rolling his eyes. He puffed his cheeks in irritation, but didn’t bother to retort, because as much as he didn’t want to admit it, Pikachu was right and they both knew it.

Ash hadn’t been standing very far away from Misty, even as he had watched her, but the walk across the beach still felt like it both took forever, and yet no time at all. The closer he got, the easier it was to make out little details, like the rainbow sparkle of her Key Stone as it dangled from her scrunchie, or how she was smiling at the ocean as if just looking at it made her happy. That was probably true, Ash thought, but there was something about the  _way_ she smiled at it that . . . well, it made him think that maybe Misty understood something about the ocean that he didn’t. And  _that_ was probably true, too, but he wished that she’d share some of that understanding with him. He didn’t—it never really made him happy to think that Misty could be places where he couldn’t stand, too.

He opened his mouth to call out to her, but she turned around before he could. His voice caught in his throat, anyway, as she turned that smile on him, but even as his voice got stuck, everything else inside of him felt bubbly. She smiled at him, and it was really no different than how she had smiled at the ocean. Maybe—Maybe they weren’t in such different places after all.

“Hey,” she said, “what took you so long?”

“I didn’t take long,” Ash said. The words were out of his mouth before he could help them, and though he knew that he  _had_ dawdled for longer than he should have, he still only barely resisted the urge to shake Pikachu off his shoulder as his best friend in the whole universe muttered another sarcastic “ _Piika,”_ beneath his breath.

Misty, on the other hand, just added a touch of bemusement to her smile. “Uh-huh. Anyway, what did you call me out here for? We’re missing the party.”

“It’s not really a party,” Ash said, and that, he felt, was entirely true. Huge dinners with everyone gathered were a regular occurrence in Alola, where it seemed customary to take any occasion as an excuse to bring everyone together to have a fun time. They had huge dinners for successful group projects, for arbitrary holidays, and for things made up on the spot (such as the anniversary of the first time Sophocles ever successfully made a remote-control car). The fact that everyone had gotten together to have a big dinner now because they had a nice adventure with Brock and Misty during their visit wasn’t really a  _party_ , Ash felt. It was just something people  _did_ in Alola.

But this time it was Misty’s turn to roll her eyes, and she sounded a little exasperated as she said, “Well, whatever it is, we’re missing it. So, what is it? Why did you want to meet me out here?”

“That’s, uh . . . I got . . .”

It was just a stupid present. It wasn’t—it wasn’t a big deal, there was no reason for him to feel so nervous, no reason for his heart to feel all fidgety, or his breath to feel all short and hot. But the hand holding the black velvet box (which was pretty big, all things considered—a nice, big rectangle, and so it was astounding she hadn’t noticed it yet, even if he was still holding it down by his side, a little behind his leg as if to hide it) was no less sweaty, and it suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t planned this out at all. Oh sure, he had picked the gift, and gotten it ready, and picked it up, and brought it here, to the beach—but he didn’t know what to say, and his brain felt like mushy static. He hadn’t prepared this. This was worse than all of his class presentations and then some. He hadn’t prepared  _at all_.

Misty raised her eyebrows. “Ash? Are you feeling okay?”

“Uh, yeah! Yeah, I’m fine!” Ash said, but his voice cracked, and Misty’s lips twitched as if she was going to laugh. Pikachu, for his part, crooned in a way that sounded like both embarrassment and suppressed laughter as he buried his face in the crook of Ash’s neck. Ash appreciated the sentiment, but at the same time, Pikachu was  _not helping._ “I, um—” He swallowed and cleared his throat, trying to make his voice stronger (and why wasn’t it strong in the first place was the real question, this was  _embarrassing_ even though it  _shouldn’t_ have been), and then said, “I was just thinking—I’ve never really gotten you anything, have I?”

Misty blinked, and if she had looked bemused before, she looked bewildered now. “Huh?”

“You’ve gotten me lots of presents over the time we’ve known each other,” Ash said, and he turned to look back over the ocean. The sky was a deep red-orange now, with strong streaks of purple, and the sea looked like it was glittering under the low sunlight. “Like when we first met, and I took—uh, borrowed—”

“Stole,” Misty interjected.

“— _borrowed_ your bike,” Ash said, frowning, as he turned back to her.

“It’s only  _borrowing_ if you have permission, and you give it back later,” Misty said. “I never said you could take it—”

“It was an emergency,” Ash said, and he waved his free hand in the air. “There wasn’t time—”

“—and you  _destroyed it_ , so—”

“ _Pikachu_ was the one who destroyed it, not me—”

“ _PI_ ka!” Pikachu said indignantly, and he pulled back so that he could turn on Ash’s shoulder to glare at him, outraged.

Ash gave him a  _look_ right back. “Well, it’s true! It’s not like I could’ve used Thunderbolt like that, right?”

“Yeah, but you were the one responsible for Pikachu,” Misty said, as Pikachu opened his mouth to offer a furious retort. “And considering the shape he was in when I pulled you two out of the river—”

“That was because of the spearow!” Ash cried. “You saw what they were like later, there was no reasoning with them—”

“Why were they angry in the first place?”

“Because—because the one spearow was jealous that Pikachu had a trainer—”

“Was that all? Because I seem to remember you saying something about  _hitting_ the one that had evolved into a fearow back when we all got attacked on our way to Valencia Island.”

“I—that—that’s not the point!” Ash cried, even as Misty smirked a little and hummed under her breath, her arms folded. “The point is that it’s because you were there with your bike that Pikachu and I were able to get out of that mess. Things were still hard for a time after that, but even though we couldn’t ride your bike the whole way, it still got us a lot farther a lot faster than we would’ve gotten on foot. I don’t know if we would’ve made it to Viridian City on time if it wasn’t for you and your bike, and if we hadn’t . . .” Something cold slid from Ash’s chest down to his stomach, and it was like he had swallowed an apple whole for how clogged his throat suddenly felt. “I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened.”

“Chuuu,” Pikachu said. His voice was tiny, and filled with a sadness so deep that Ash couldn’t name it, even as he felt it rooted in his own chest.

Misty watched them for only a second before she walked over to stand closer, and without missing a beat or asking if it was all right, she reached over to scratch Pikachu gently beneath his chin. “Yeah. I was pretty mad about it at the time, but all things considered, looking back . . .” She smiled, and gently ruffled the fur atop Pikachu’s head before she stroked her hand down his back. “I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

The icy feeling of terror and—despair, Ash thought it was, or maybe misery—that had sprouted to life inside him melted, the clamp over his heart loosening until it released its grip completely. He smiled back at her, particularly as Pikachu loosed a happy little cry and nuzzled up against Misty’s hand. “Same here,” Ash said. “But actually, that kinda brings me back to my original point.”

Misty looked back at him, curious. “It does?”

“Yeah. ‘Cause, see, you’ve gotten me lots of presents over time, whether you meant to or not. There was that thing with your bike, and then later on you gave me your handkerchief so I could carry that bento box home. And after that, when I was having a rough time later on, you sent me one of your Super Misty lures.”

“You liked that, huh?” Misty said, and she smiled in a way that made her nose crinkle as she rubbed the back of her neck. “I wasn’t entirely sure if it was a good idea when I sent it, but—”

“What are you talking about? It’s great! I love it!” Ash said.

Misty’s hand dropped back to her side, and the sunset (Ash was sure it was the sunset) made her cheeks look red as her smile softened. “Really?”

“Of course! I don’t really use it anymore since Buizel tried stealing it that one time, but—well, that’s not the point,” Ash said, as Misty’s eyebrows raised again. “The point is that you’ve gotten me a lot of presents, and they’ve all been really great, but I’ve never really gotten you anything in return.”

“You don’t have to,” Misty said, and she clasped her hands behind her back as she looked back over the ocean. “I didn’t give you things because I wanted anything in return. I did it because I wanted to.”

“I know,” Ash said, “but I want to, too, so—can I hold your hand?”

Misty looked back at him, quickly enough that it almost looked like some of Pikachu’s stray static electricity had shocked her. “What?”

“Can I—uh, let me see your hand for a second.” Ash held out his free hand, palm up, and wiggled his fingers a bit in invitation. “Please?”

Misty slowly brought one of her hands up from behind her back, even as she gave him another bemused smile. “You never had to ask before. We always just did it.”

“Well, yeah, but—this is different,” Ash said, and it  _was,_ even if he didn’t entirely know why. Maybe it was because of the present, or maybe it was because they always held hands for safety reasons the other times, but—well, anyway, it was different, and he thought that Misty would probably see that herself soon enough. “Just—come on. Work with me, here.”

“Okay, but you’re being really weird today, you know,” Misty said, as she finally placed her hand in his open palm.

Ash rolled his eyes, and huffed as he finally lifted the black velvet box into her line of sight. “Am not,” he said.

“Are too,” Misty shot back, and Ash was about to give her another  _am not_ when her eyes fell on the box, and she went still. “What’s that?”

“It’s your present,” Ash said, but even as he answered her, he realized the problem he was presented with. In his left hand, he held Misty’s right hand. And in  _his_ right hand, he held the black velvet box. The  _closed_ black velvet box, with a lid that he could not open with his mind alone, no matter how hard he had tried to bend that spoon back in in the Saffron Gym. “Uh . . . oops.”

“Oops?”

“I, uh—I can’t . . .” Ash gestured by lifting both Misty’s hand and the box, and Pikachu—the true friend and hero that he was—scampered down Ash’s arm so that he could knock the lid off the box with his nose. Ash smiled as the box lid hit the sand. “Thanks, Pikachu.”

“Pika!” Pikachu said brightly.

But as quickly as Pikachu replied, the happy relief Ash had felt left him. The box was open now, Misty’s present contained safely on a cushion within, but . . . “But I still can’t get it out of the box.”

Pikachu heaved a sigh (and that was unfair, in Ash’s opinion, because Pikachu hadn’t immediately realized that the problem persisted either), but nonetheless took the situation into his own paws by crawling back down Ash’s arm, grabbing the gift with his teeth, and knocking the box itself down onto the sand once he had the present safely taken out of it. Without wasting a beat he dropped the gift into Ash’s now empty hand, and then scampered back up so that he could sit comfortably on Ash’s head.

“Thanks,” Ash said again. “You’re a real lifesaver, you know that?”

“Pi, Pikapi,” Pikachu said, and Ash couldn’t help but laugh a little at how readily Pikachu agreed with him.

Misty, on the other hand, was staring at the object in Ash’s hand, her eyes wide. Ash also couldn’t stop himself from taking a second to enjoy how genuinely shocked (and, if he dared to think it, awed) she looked. “Ash,” she breathed, “is that . . .”

“Yeah,” he said. “Hold still.”

Ash lifted Misty’s hand, and after sending a quick prayer to whatever legendary was willing to listen to him this week that the size was right, he slid the shiny, black Z-Ring over her knuckles and onto her wrist. To Ash’s relief and delight, it fit perfectly, and in the dark light of the sunset, the black ore gleamed and the Waterium Z sparkled.

As Ash released Misty’s hand, Misty raised it so that she could stare at the Z-Ring, turning her wrist this way and that so that she could look at it from every angle. Now Ash didn’t think it was a stretch to say she looked awed; she looked  _amazed_ , and the bubbly feeling he had felt when she had smiled at him before returned in full force. His cheeks hurt a little, and he thought that was probably because he couldn’t stop smiling.

“What . . .” Misty breathed, and she gently touched her Z-Ring with her other hand, running her fingers along the band. “How . . .”

“You said you wanted mine back when we visited Kanto,” Ash said. “I know you said you were joking, but I figured you might’ve been really interested anyway. Since you said you wanted one, and since I’ve got an in with the Tapu here, I had a chat with Tapu Fini to get the ore I needed for your Z-Ring when you said you were coming to visit.” Well, calling it  _a chat_ was probably putting it mildly, but Ash figured Misty didn’t really need to know the details. “After that, I took the ore to Hala—he’s one of the Kahunas here—and had him make the ore into a Z-Ring for you. Then all I had to do was get the Waterium Z, and once I did that, it was done!” He watched her for a second, and when she didn’t respond (or pull her eyes away from the Z-Ring), he said, “So? What’cha think? You like it, right?”

Misty finally looked up at him, and for once, her expression was inscrutable. “You did all that for me?”

“Yeah, of course,” Ash said, and he shifted his weight from foot to foot. He wasn’t sure what that look on her face meant, but— “Do you like it?”

Misty looked back down at the Z-Ring, and gave the Waterium Z a gentle tap. She looked back at him, then, and her smile lit up her eyes as she nodded. “Yeah, of course,” she said. “I love it!”

A floaty feeling swept through Ash, and he felt that if he jumped right then, his feet would never hit the ground again. He beamed as he said, “Really?”

“Definitely,” Misty said, and it was definitely the sunset that made her cheeks so red, and her eyes so bright, even as she held the Z-Ring around her wrist. “It’s beautiful. Thank you, Ash.”

Laughter bubbled out of Ash before he could help it, and he rubbed the back of his neck as he kicked at the sand with one foot. “No problem, Misty. Wanna head back? You can probably ask Lana to show you how to do the water-type Z-Move dance.”

“There’s only one dance?” Misty asked, but she fell into step beside him as he started to walk back up toward the resort. Ash swung his hands by his side; he almost felt like skipping, but he restrained the impulse (if only barely). “I thought I could give it my own spin—you know, like with mega evolution.”

“I don’t think that’s how Z-Moves work. You and your pokémon both have to do the same dance,” Ash said. “Speaking of which, which pokémon do you think you’ll have use it? Gyarados?”

“Hmm, maybe, but I don’t want to put all of my strengths onto one pokémon,” Misty said. “I could maybe teach Azumarill . . . or, wait, I know! Psyduck!”

Ash sputtered a laugh. “Psyduck?”

“What?” Misty said, but far from sounding indignant, she sounded amused, even as she poked his cheek with one finger. “Psyduck’s strong and you know it.”

“Yeah, but it takes him a while to catch up, doesn’t it?” Ash said. “He’s a bit slow, so he’ll have only just started the dance by the time you finish it. It’ll never work.”

“Don’t bet on it, Ketchum. If I can teach Psyduck to control his Confusion attack, then I can teach him to dance. He might not know how to swim—”

“He still doesn’t know how to swim?!”

“—but he’ll learn how to dance. You’ll see.”

Ash shook his head, but try as he might, he still couldn’t get the goofy grin off his face. “Yeah, I’ll see.”

“Pika, chu,” Pikachu agreed, from his place atop Ash’s head.

They fell into comfortable silence, walking side-by-side, Ash still swinging his arms by his side. But as they neared the steps that led back up to the resort patio, Ash’s hand knocked against Misty’s—and while his hand  _knocked_ against hers, while it was an accident, when their hands brushed again a half-second later, her hand slid neatly into his palm. Ash’s heart jolted, and he was about to say sorry and pull away when something she had said earlier popped into his head.

_You never had to ask before. We always just did it._

That was true, but those were safety situations, and this was different—but even if it was different, Misty didn’t seem to mind. She looked over at him, a little smile at play on her lips, her eyebrows raised just so—and Ash, that bubbly feeling still threatening to put a skip in his step, returned her smile full force as he laced his fingers with hers and swung  _both_ their hands this time, Misty laughing right along with him.


End file.
